Gnizmo on 03 January 2008
Proprietary input devices will proliferate too - I think we'll see tie-ins between content delivery and the controller, like the "Steam controller". Again, yes, that will keep people on consoles for longer.
Name 5 games with proprietary controllers that are extremely succesful. I know of Guitar Hero, DDR, and to a lesser extent Sing Star. Extra devices do not normally sell well because they cost more and no one likes that.
No, I think the be-fun-and-innovate will be enough to defeat higher specs for a few generations, but not forever.
If it works now, why would it not work in the future? Or are you assuming that fun and innovative means zero technical specs increase? The next Nintendo console will likely be nearly as strong as the 360, and as cheap as the Wii is now. People are not going to suddenly become technophiles in the future. Such changes in public opinion take a long long long time and a general shift in sociatal norms that is not currently present.
Don't you see that happening already with all the SKUs, firmware updates and console game patches/ports with exclusive content?
The different models of consoles are nothing even close to the differences between just PCs. Nearly every game made will play on every model of a console it is made for. That has not been true of PCs for as long as I have had one. There isn't a 360 model with twice the graphical power of the base model, and there never will be. The trend towards multiple models I think will die in the next gen as it has not seemed to work out all that well for either Sony or Microsoft.
